by Paul Kidd
Thick glass discs caught in window light made the most marvelous blank mask. Miliana managed to adjust her spectacles and lean toward her embroidery in beautifully feigned puzzlement.
"Oh! Is it so very important? I mean-it can't be so drastically wrong…"
Ulia flapped her lower lip like a landed fish and flung up a great wailing cry of dismay.
"Important? Sune bear me witness-Oh, alack the day!" A pause for breath strained her bodice lacing, which already groaned like naval hawser cables in a storm. "Heraldry is the very quintessence of the social code! Heraldry is our tool for planning every feminine campaign. What if-oh, what if one were to give a favor to the wrong champion? Can one imagine, even for an instant, what damage might be done?"
Miliana wrinkled up her nose as she polished her spectacles on her gown.
"Ulia, I can't see that it matters, since they're all going to fall off their horses anyway."
"Yes-but the wounds, girl! The wounds!" Lady Ulia clapped hands beneath her great horned headpiece in amazement. "The whole point of a tournament is for the championed lady to rush forth and kiss her hero's wounds!"
"Goodness! Well, if they land on what I think they'll land on, I certainly won't want to kiss anything of the sort!"
Ulia swelled with indignation and pointed toward the corridor with one trembling, pale hand.
"Wretch! I see sterner measures must be taken. I have been soft, but I shall be soft no longer!"
Ulia sank down onto a stool, exhausted by the wicked ways of the world.
"Whatever can you young folk be thinking of today? I ask you. I beg you! Our Lomatran suitor is invited here, into my own home, to our very victory ball-and does he appear? Does he make himself known to his sweetheart or his future mother-in-law? No, he does not! He disappears, like a thief in the night."
Lady Ulia stood, turned her back upon her stepdaughter and went into a magnificent huff. "I shall discharge my own responsibilities, even though the rest of Toril sees fit to let civilized manners die! To the library with you, my girl! To the library to study heraldry until your eyes can bear no more. You shall be locked inside, nor shall you stir forth until the supper has been laid.
"Now get thee gone!"
Miliana slapped her hands together in satisfaction, picked up her hems and marched gleefully off down the corridors. She ducked out of Ulia's sight, dove into the empty library, and briskly slammed shut the door.
Her tall pointy hat made the perfect speaking trumpet; removing the very tip, she placed it near her magical box of words, directing the tedious monologue toward the corridor. Lady Ulia's suspicions would thus, hopefully, be soothed, leaving Miliana free to clamber like a spider monkey along the upper shelves for many profitable hours.
In pursuing her private studies, Miliana's primary problem seemed to be basic comprehension. Not only did she hardly understand the terms used in her only source books, but she could scarcely comprehend the language in which the books were written. It seemed to be a most unusual, antiquated tongue, and although the symbols used to frame the spells needed no translation, she really did need to get a better grip on the whole wretched thing. A translation of the spellbook's index would be her best next move. Trying to cast newly discovered spells at random was proving more hazardous every day. Miliana's last attempt at sorcery had summoned a great clap of licorice-scented steam, and had created a sort of big green-furry-thing which had promptly leapt out of the window, burrowed a hole into the palace pantry, and eaten all the pickled eels.
While her own voice droned ceaselessly on and on a dozen feet below, Miliana wobbled precariously at the top of a ladder, piling her arms with books. Half an hour of devoted search uncovered treasures of the finest kind: guides to ancient languages, cabalism and folklore brimmed between her arms, along with some dust-covered scrolley things that must have been interesting, otherwise they would not have been so well hidden behind the shelves. Utterly engrossed, smeared with dust and teetering beneath a vast mountain of literature, the girl never anticipated disaster until it struck at her from below.
Rising over the brain-dead drone of Miliana's speaking box, there came a subtle scratching at the door. From time to time a skewer poked in through the lock, followed by curses and more frenzied activity from outside. Finally, the lock sprang open with a decisive click; the door yielded, and a tall young man strode hastily inside.
His progress was blocked by Miliana's ladder. The youth looked up in puzzlement, caught an eyeful of Miliana's frilly pantalettes, and instantly gave a leap of fright.
Inevitably, this crashed his skull against the ladder, which skittered off across the floor. Abandoned twelve feet above the ground, Miliana blinked, hung poised in midair as ancient principles of gravity took hold, and with an almighty squawk tumbled down to the rug. She was saved the worst indignities of a bruised derriere by having the idiot-youth's head break her fall.
Shocked, dazed and stinging, Miliana found herself collapsed upon the ground under an avalanche of fallen books and paperwork. A wild commotion began somewhere under her skirts as a struggling victim desperately called for air.
Rescuing her spectacles, which were dangling ignominiously from one ear, Miliana managed to focus her bewildered senses and draw up her skirts. Struggling up between a shapely pair of legs clad in stockings, bows, and knee-length underwear came a young man in shabby court attire-a man clutching the crushed ruins of charcoal drawing sticks. The youth pulled dark hair back from his eyes, blinked dazedly up at Miliana, and suddenly blushed, bright as a summer's dawn.
"Oh-it's you!"
Rearing up like a scruffy cobra, the young man took Miliana by the hand and vigorously introduced himself.
"Lorenzo! Lorenzo Utrelli Da Lomatra. I'm a scholar-well, an inventor, really. And an artist. You've probably seen my work here and there. I did the portrait piece the embassy brought for Prince Mannicci-'The Sea Goddess Rising From the Waves.' Not that you can have seen it yet; it's still at the embassy. But it's ever so good!"
Crawling painfully out of the rubble of unbound books, Miliana slapped down her skirts and sourly tried to snatch back some of her dignity.
"So, you're Lorenzo." The name almost seemed to ring a bell. "Very pleased to meet you, I'm sure."
"Oh-my pleasure! No really-I mean, I've seen you about the palace. You must work here." The boy tried to clamber his way up from the floor. "What do you call yourself?"
"Angry."
"Angry?" The young man screwed up his face in puzzlement, then suddenly paled as two and two made four. "Oh-oh angry. Oh, I am so sorry! So-so very…"
The boy made an attempt at dusting off Miliana's posterior, slapping her backside in a manner which made the girl peer down in alarm.
A big, black charcoal handprint now marred her dress-a handprint placed in a manner that would make Lady Ulia scream for the nearest headsman.
The corridor floor trembled; Ulia herself could be heard approaching the library door. Miliana leapt to her feet, slammed shut her "noise box" and jammed the portal back in place. As she surveyed the mess of fallen books, young man and drawings all about the carpet, a hunted look possessed her face.
Alone in a room with a man-and with his handprints all over her rump! Miliana planted her back against the door and let her breast heave in utter panic.
"Miliaaaa-naaaaaa! Miliana, whatever was that noise?"
Lady Ulia's voice struck fear straight into Lorenzo's soul. The boy dove beneath a table and scuttled about the floor on all fours like a demented rat looking for its hole. Miliana heard footsteps approaching from the corridor and nearly expired from fright.
"The chimney! Take the books and hide inside the chimney!"
"Eeerk!" Lorenzo peered up into the chimney in dismay. "There's a half-eaten pickled eel in here!"
"Just do it! Quickly!"
Lorenzo burrowed out of sight; Miliana took a calming breath, tried to still her pulse, and briskly opened up the library door. She managed to intercept Lady U
lia with a false, befuddled smile.
"Um… hello…"
"Miliana, I require nothing more of you than diligent-nay, unceasing effort!" Lady Ulia bowled Miliana aside and peered suspiciously about the room. "What, pray tell, is that lumpen object moving about in the fireplace?"
Young Lorenzo's backside could be seen jammed like an unseemly cork into the bottom of the chimney. With a squawk, the youth suddenly lost purchase and fell down in the cinders, almost immediately drowning beneath a cascade of books and scrolls.
"Oh… oh he's just…" Miliana blinked behind the blank shield of her spectacles, searching for a suitable set of words. "The cleaner! He's th-the library cleaner. He cleans the books… you know, keeps the pages all clear and sparkling."
"Sparkling!" Ulia's voice roared, rattling the plaster-work. "The boy's nothing but a mass of soot!"
Miliana crammed her backside against a wall, hiding the telltale handprint on her rear.
"Charcoal absorbs foul smells, Ulia. 'Tis a well-known fact."
"Is it? Is it indeed?" Ulia squared her shoulders and narrowed down her eyes. "Cleaner or no cleaner, his presence serves as a distraction. And I must say that I find it most unsuitable for you to be sharing a room alone with a male commoner." Ulia pulled a quizzing glass from her cleavage and used it to examine the young man as though he were a particularly noisome species of bug. "Goodness-why does he smell of eels?"
"I have no idea, milady."
"Hmmmmph." Ulia sank her lens back into its cavernous hiding place. "Well, as long as he's here, have him search the wainscoting; a large green furry thing has just made off with a dried hogfish from the kitchen shelf. The vermin in this palace are becoming quite unforgivable!"
Ulia hitched up her skirts, tried to walk through the door and managed to get her hat jammed in the doorframe. She ponderously maneuvered herself about and began to sidle past the obstacle, meanwhile fixing the hapless Lorenzo beneath her baleful eye.
"Young man, you have my permission to continue with your duties-but pray, do not be long. The young lady has research of the utmost importance to attend to. The security of Sumbria itself may one day rest upon her work."
The door closed with a titanic slam, leaving Miliana and Lorenzo to slump against the bookshelves in relief. The girl finally managed to peel herself away from the marble and wearily opened her speaking box; the sound of her own voice dragging its way through chapter seventy one, paragraph six: "Charges dovetail and counter dovetail and their acute relevance to social graces…" masked their conversation from eavesdroppers in the corridor.
Lorenzo half crouched, searching the wainscoting for signs of errant green furry things.
"What's a hogfish?"
"It doesn't matter." Miliana collapsed into a chair, remembered the charcoal mark on her backside, and decided that she didn't care. The girl wearily rubbed beneath her spectacles and massaged her eyes. "Now look-Lothario-"
"Lorenzo! Lorenzo Utrelli…"
"… Da tiddly-pom and tiddly-dee. Yes…" Miliana suddenly sat bolt upright in her chair. "You picked that lock! You're not supposed to be in here."
The young man-a handsome creature in an ink-stained sort of way-skittered aside like a nervous stick bug.
"Yes I am! I'm a guest! I just… just… just didn't have a key…"
"So you're a guest, are you?" Miliana vaguely remembered seeing the man before, but for the life of her she couldn't remember just quite where. "Well what do you want the library for?"
"Study!" Lorenzo left a trail of soot behind him as he crossed the polished marble floor. "Sumbria has some of the best books there are. It must be terribly interesting living here."
"That all depends on what you're allowed to do with your time." Miliana scowled, fixed her gaze on the intruder, and crinkled up her speckled nose. "Now, look-I'm not so sure you should be allowed in here."
The young man never even heard her. He crouched forward to inspect Miliana's magical speaking box, his face glowing with rapturous fascination.
"Oh-oh, this is wonderful! Superb!" Lorenzo turned to stare at Miliana with awe and excitement shining in his eyes. "Are you a sorceress?"
Miliana almost said "no"-and then the tone of respect in the young man's voice brought her up short. She drew erect, preened like a heron, and attempted to act terribly, terribly wise.
"Yes. Yes, I am, actually."
"And so they actually make you study!" Lorenzo sat himself down in a cloud of cinders and dust. "Back at home, they've banned me from every library in town. They say I'm disruptive." The Lomatran avidly examined Miliana's arrangement of the box and speaking trumpet. "This is fascinating. Now, you see, this has bearing on some of my own studies. I am exploring the possibility that sound can be translated into peaks and waves."
Miliana raised one eyebrow and peered at her companion through her pretty freckles.
"How would that be useful?"
"Ah-but perhaps it might be!" Lorenzo spread the drawing of a machine out across the table. "Here, you see? This machine uses a membrane to pick up sound, vibrating as noise contacts the membrane. The vibrations make this needle jump and change the score written on this parchment scroll, which is dragged slowly past the needle by these little springs! Now all I need to do is somehow reverse the process, find a way of reading the jump marks on the parchment, and we can make a re-playable mechanical recording of any sound we desire." The young man puffed out his chest in pride. "You see? The job's half done!"
Miliana leaned back in her chair and fixed her companion with a droll, sarcastic stare.
"You must be from the country."
Lorenzo instantly turned upon her a pair of eyes utterly alive with passion-a face so filled with fire that it welded the girl hard into her seat.
"Not from the country… of the country!" The boy slapped his hands onto the table and leaned toward Miliana, who leaned backward in her chair in blank surprise. "It's time to liberate the people from the tyranny of magic! Don't you see that a system of mechanics is the only means of ever freeing the world from mere autocracy?"
"You're right. I don't." Miliana speared forward, sharp light glinting from her lenses. "Magic is the one thing that anyone can have. The one thing that can free us from-from being ordinary!"
"Aha! Aha!" Lorenzo stuck a finger up into the air, dislodging a shower of grime into his cuff. "And how is this achieved? Through hard study. Through long, arduous learning and dedication! It's repression through and through!"
Moving from scorn to absolute irritation, Miliana folded up her arms.
"Look, I fail to see how my sitting on my noble backside reading books on magic represses a bunch of people that I've never even met."
"Well, that's my point, you see." Lorenzo threw open his arms, frightening the green furry thing sleeping on the mantelpiece. "Sorcery is only learned through long years of very intensive, very expensive study. Only the nobility can afford it-placing magic squarely in the hands of the autocratic classes. If there's ever going to be any real equality, we have to place a means of power into the hands of the masses!"
The girl stared at him in absolute bewilderment.
"What do you want to go around giving power to the masses for?"
"So that they can take part in the process of their own political rule!"
"Political rule?" Miliana blinked in amazement. "Have you sat back and watched what these palace dwellers do to each other all day? It's daggers in the back and internecine warfare twenty-four hours a day! If you go around getting everyone to carry on like that, we'll all be dead within a week!"
"Well, I don't mean that everyone should kill each other." Lorenzo ran fingers through his hair, disturbing a sooty spider which absailed quickly down to the floor. "I mean that we can break people away from the current tyranny of study!"
Miliana bridled.
"What have you got against study?"
"It is class prejudicial!"
"But you study!" Miliana pointed a finger straight at Lor
enzo's nose. "You already admitted that you study things!"
"Um…" Lorenzo blinked, then hit upon an explanation. "Ah, yes, but only to serve a noble end!"
"So you're saying you're against knowledge?" Miliana angrily shoved a book across the table to crash against Lorenzo's arms. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? We should all drag ourselves down into the mire!"
"No! Look… you've made me forget everything I wanted to say." Lorenzo floundered about in a bog of frustration. "Study is what I want to spread! Everyone should be able to do it. It should be a basic right for every man, woman and child."
"All right then-so they can all study magic, and then everyone will be happy." Miliana gave a sarcastic, joyous wave. "What's your problem now?"
"Yes, but… but not everyone can do magic! I mean-the talent might not be there." Lorenzo paced back and forth like a caged animal, albeit a rather scrawny one. "What we need is an equalizer, something that can be a bit like magic for people who can't actually do magic, either because of poverty or inability."
Miliana heaved a sharp, irritated sigh.
"A unique power."
"Yes!"
"For everybody."
"Absolutely!"
The girl felt it best to let the conversation drop and lie like a dead thing on the ground.
"You're a loony."
"I'm only thinking of the masses."
"Yes." Miliana reached for a textbook and primly opened the cover. "Obviously you haven't tried smelling the masses lately."
She tried to dismiss him with her pose, but it seemed Lorenzo Utrelli Da thingamajig was made of sterner, dumber stuff; the man regarded her with a look of unfeigned amazement and tried to catch her eye.
"Um… Miss? Milady?"
"It's Miliana."
"Oh-Miliana!" Lorenzo let the name brand itself in great steaming letters on the inside of his skull, entirely failing to connect it with royal blood and wedding bells. "I just wanted to tell you how much I've appreciated talking with you. Intellectually, mind-to-mind, I mean. It's-it's utterly amazing!"